Siege of Mankera

01A fort in the Thal

After the Durrani collapse, the Saddozai Pathans of Dera Ismail Khan held the land between the Indus and the Jhelum, with their strongest fort at Mankera in the middle of the Thal desert. Its defence was the sand itself: an army camped before it would die of thirst. In the cold season of 1821, after taking Dera Ismail Khan’s outlying posts, Ranjit Singh marched against it in person, with gangs of diggers sinking wells along the road so the army could move.

02Surrender on terms

The Sikh army invested the fort and brought up guns, and the siege lasted some weeks. Seeing that the desert had failed him, Nawab Hafiz Ahmad Khan offered terms. He was allowed to march out with his family and property and retire to Dera Ismail Khan, which he held under the Maharaja. Mankera and the whole Sind Sagar Doab were added to the Sikh state, bringing Ranjit Singh’s frontier to the Indus along its middle course.

Dynasty · 1799–1849 CEThe Sikh Empire (Sarkar-i-Khalsa)Ranjit Singh took Lahore in 1799 and was proclaimed Maharaja of the Punjab in 1801. He united the Sikh misls into one state, pushed the Afghans back beyond the Khyber, and built the last great Indian army to face the British; ten years after his death the empire was annexed in 1849.Read →